Platforms

A demo version was independently released by Scott on April 1st, 2014, but is no longer available for download due to copyrighted audio and models being used. After being picked up by Rooster Teeth, RWBY: Grimm Eclipse became the first project under development by Rooster Teeth Games. It was released to the public on Steam Early Access on December 1st, 2015.[1]

On July 5th, 2016, the PC version had its official release,[2] with the Macintosh version released on October 13th, 2016.[3] The console version was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 17th, 2017.[4]

Contents

Summary

Plot

The storyline of the game follows the four girls of Team RWBY on a new adventure

The game features its own unique plot that is canon within the show continuity. Series writers Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross collaborated with the game development team on the story.[5]

The storyline of the game takes place between RWBYVolume 2 and Volume 3.[6] In the first level of the game, Professor Peter Port guides Team RWBY through a mission to the Emerald Forest, where there have been issues with the security network. Along the way, they fight off hordes of Grimm, defending the security network control centers as Port repairs them.

The team discovers that the network was reprogrammed by an unknown party. They also find mysterious cages used for capturing Grimm, created by the now-defunct Merlot Industries, an old research and development corporation that had its primary facility at the ill-fated settlement of Mountain Glenn.

Team RWBY returns to Mountain Glenn to investigate the abandoned facility of Merlot Industries, guided by Bartholomew Oobleck. There, they fight through more Grimm before an enormous explosion causes the building to collapse around them. The team falls into the subterranean ruins of the city, which they find have been booby-trapped with a large bomb. Team RWBY manage to contain the explosion by dropping the bomb down a large chasm. They also encounter mysterious mutant Grimm Creeps, which detonate explosively when they get close to their enemies.

Team RWBY then visits Forever Fall to continue investigating the trail left behind by Merlot Industries. There, they discover more disturbing evidence of Merlot's unhealthy practices, such as a Grimm holding facility and more mutated Grimm, including new mutant Beowolves. At the end of the trail, Team RWBY attempts to infiltrate a Merlot Industries ship coming in to dock by hiding behind the cover of shipping containers, but get trapped when the container they are hiding in is loaded onto the departing ship.

The ship carrying Team RWBY arrives on a remote island, where they start activating radio towers in an attempt to restore radio contact with Doctor Oobleck. The island is guarded by a number of powerful security androids and infested with more mutant Grimm. After restoring contact, the mysterious Doctor Merlot introduces himself via Scroll communication. Professor Ozpin also contacts Team RWBY and begins conversing with Doctor Merlot, with whom he is already familiar.

Ozpin claims that Merlot played no small part in causing the Mountain Glenn disaster and felt the world would be a safer place had he perished in the fall. Merlot Industries was performing experiments and research on Grimm in Mountain Glenn, but ran short on specimens and thus started to attract them, leading to the destruction of the city. Merlot Industries research, according to Doctor Merlot, was critical for Remnant's advancement.

Team RWBY discovers more of the green substance, known as the serum, which Ozpin suspects is being harvested by Doctor Merlot and used to create the mutants. They follow a pipeline carrying the serum to Merlot's laboratory, fighting their way past more androids and mutated Grimm. The team ultimately makes their way through the facility to a testing lab, where they encounter a mutant Death Stalker. After they defeat the mutant Death Stalker, Merlot self-destructs his lab. Victorious, Team RWBY is extracted by a Bullhead called in by Ozpin.

Gameplay

A screenshot with the HUD visible

Grimm Eclipse is a co-operative survival-based action role-playing game. Scott cites the games Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, and Mystic Heroes as inspirations for the gameplay mechanics of Grimm Eclipse. The official website also names Dynasty Warriors and Left 4 Dead as influences. The official player guide refers to the game as a "mission-based character action game".[7]

Missions

Players work cooperatively to progress through missions. The difficulty of the game scales with the number of players currently in the game and adjusts on-the-fly when players leave or join. Single-player includes the difficulties Normal, Hard, Legendary, and Eclipse.

There are 10 missions in the first campaign. Each mission has a number of different sections and objectives, which include clearing an area of enemies, defending an area from waves of enemies, generator defense, and escorting other players as they complete a certain task. Puzzle and platformer elements are also present in some levels. One example of a puzzle includes finding a key in destructible pots to unlock gates and open up the next area of a level. Some platformer elements must be completed to find collectibles. Another, located in the fifth mission, leads to an achievement/trophy-granting easter egg of RWBY creator Monty Oum's signature.

Horde Mode

Horde Mode was made available on October 13th, 2016 as free DLC. Separate to the mission-based campaign, Horde Mode is another gametype that tasks players with defending multiple security stations from respawning waves of Grimm. In Horde Mode, players accrue currency, named after Lien from the series, by defeating enemies, which allows them to purchase a variety of turret defenses, which assist in fending off the horde.

Horde Mode maps are based on the Emerald Forest, Forever Fall and Mountain Glenn levels, but are not identical to those found in the campaign mode. Each has a set of advantages and challenges: Forever Fall has long distances between security stations and Mountain Glenn increases the number of stations that must be defended as time goes on.

Combat

The game supports Xbox and PlayStation DualShock 4 controllers, as well as keyboard and mouse.

Players have melee and ranged attacks, as well as a number of unlockable special attacks unique to each character. The ability to perform special moves must be earned by performing combos with regular attacks. Combos of hits in quick succession are used to charge up special abilities, the highest level of which is called an Ultimate.

Another type of special attack are team attacks, which are contextual and based on certain factors, with one player setting up the conditions for another player to use a special attack to finish off a stunned enemy, encouraging teamwork.

The game's health system is named after Aura. Aura is depleted by taking successive hits from enemies but regenerates if players are not hit for a certain amount of time. If a player's Aura is depleted, they have a small number of hits that they can survive before they are downed. Downed players have the option of being revived by other players or waiting up to almost a minute to respawn.

Enemy types in the game each have unique behaviors, stats and methods of attack. For example, Boarbatusks have a spinning charge attack, whilst Ursai have a strong defense. There are different tiers within each species of Grimm, with more powerful enemies being visually distinguished by having more armor. The boss of the game is the mutant Death Stalker, which is only vulnerable to damage at certain times, has various attacks, as well as the ability to spawn other Grimm.

Enemies have health bars indicating how much damage they have taken, as well as icons that denote various status effects, such as being stunned.

Characters and Progression

Ruby's skill tree, an example of unlockable abilities in the game

All four members of Team RWBY – Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long – are playable in the game, each with a unique set of moves and abilities which can be unlocked as the player progresses through the game, divided into different skill trees so players can use characters in different ways. The abilities for Team RWBY follow the general formula of ultimate, ranged and team attack skills.

The first paid DLC adds the members of Team JNPR – Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos and Lie Ren – as playable characters. Each of the members of JNPR has a unique variation on the standard formula of ultimate, team attack and ranged skill trees. For example, Jaune lacks a true ranged attack, instead charging forward with his shield, but is able to boost his teammates' health, speed and damage; while Pyrrha has upgradable regular attack combos and a counter that allows her to chain attacks against multiple enemies by throwing her shield.

The number of players using a certain character is not limited, and up to four players can choose the same character in a party. Players are also not limited to choosing members of a certain team, and any combination of characters from the two playable teams, such as Team RNJR, is possible.

Additional attacks and abilities are unlocked by gaining experience points and completing challenges. Players earn experience by defeating enemies, reviving allies and finding artifacts, which are scattered throughout the game area. Character progression is persistent and carried over through different play-throughs. Hunter Ranks give players the option of resetting their progression in order to gain new rank logos, which are earned by completing sets of challenges in the character progression.

Development

Independent Development

Gameplay from Jordan Scott's independently developed version

RWBY: Grim Eclipse was originally a fan-game by Jordan Scott, built in the Unity engine over a period of around 5 months. Jordan independently re-created all the assets from the show, modeling and texturing environments, character models and weapons.

A demo version was released on April 1st, 2014, the 11th anniversary of the founding of Rooster Teeth, and quickly received widespread recognition from other fans. Upon its release, Scott stated that no further development would be made on the game as he intended to follow original concepts out of necessity.

In the independently released version, the player controls Ruby Rose as she fights Beowolves in a setting similar to the "Red" Trailer. The objective of the game is simply to survive for as long as possible against indefinitely respawning enemy waves. Other gameplay elements, such as items and stats, are also present in the user interface but are not functional in the released version.

With Rooster Teeth

Less than 24 hours after the public release of the game, Scott was contacted by Monty Oum and brought into discussions to develop the game for Rooster Teeth.[8] On July 4th, 2014 during the RTX 2014 RWBY Panel, it was announced that the game was picked up by the company to be made into an official game.

The first co-operative multiplayer build of the game

On December 25th, 2014, a pre-alpha version was released to Sponsors in order to showcase the updated animation and mechanics. The first multiplayer version of the game was released on April 1st, 2015, with players controlling re-colored versions of Ruby, corresponding to her team colors of red, white, black and yellow. It was also announced that a new developer, Michael Hadwin, had joined the team.[9]

The pre-alpha versions included the mission "Extermination", in which players must progress through several different playable zones by defeating enemies in the area. In another gametype, players must cooperate to protect a generator and substation from waves of Grimm. These gametypes would form the basis for the story-driven missions of the final game.

Team Expansion

At RTX 2015, the game was playable on the show floor. At the showcase during the RWBY Panel on August 7th, 2015, all four members of Team RWBY were revealed to be playable, each with their own unique set of moves in a co-operative multiplayer mode.

Casey Donnellan, Brian Reilly and Abe Robertson also joined the team in order to handle other sectors of development in support of Scott, who continued to focus primarily on gameplay. The team commented that they were given the creative freedom to add new elements that might later appear in the show, and expressed their desire to create an original type of Grimm for the game.[10]

On October 15th, 2015, the game was added to Steam Greenlight for the public to pledge support for. The game passed the Greenlight stage in a little over 48 hours.[11][12] An open Beta was announced for Rooster Teeth Sponsors in November 2015.[13]

Steam Early Access

A screenshot from the Steam Early Access release of the game

On December 1st, 2015 the game was released to the public for the first time on Steam Early Access.[14] All four members of Team RWBY were playable in the released version, each with unique move sets and attacks. The Grimm Eclipse Early Access release was one of the top-selling games on Steam shortly after its release.[15]

On February 6th, 2016, the game development team announced a series of major updates scheduled for the first half of 2016, with new features including adjustments to the gameplay mechanics, including increased combat "depth" and offline singleplayer.[16] Also joining the development team were Jeff Chamberlain, Andy Cortez and Andy Messner.

The first of these updates, the Combat Revision, was released on March 9th, 2016 on an opt-in basis.[17][18][19] The next major update, known as the Content Update, was released on May 7th, 2016. The update included the next two campaign levels furthering the story. Also included were new enemy types and character taunts, along with changes to the visuals and sound effects.[20]

Full Release

Official RWBY: Grimm Eclipse hero banner

The full release date of the game on PC was announced to be July 5th, 2016.[2][21] The Macintosh version was also released on October 13th, 2016. The total development time was around 14 months, worked on by a team of ten people. It was also announced that a console port of the game was under development by Austin-based game developer Panic Button Games, with a tentative release date announced for January 17, 2017 to be released on both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.[22]

The full released version included persistent character progression (as opposed to the per-session progression of the Early Access versions). Hunter Ranks were also introduced to encourage replays. Other changes included tweaks to the combat system, achievements and a new user interface with artwork by Patrick Rodriguez, the art director of RWBY Volume 4.[23]

The final game release included new lines recorded by the voice cast of the show. In addition to the cast of the show, the main villain of the game, Doctor Merlot, was voiced by veteran voice actor Dave Fennoy, well known for his work on video games including The Walking Dead and Prototype.[24]

Downloadable Content

Rooster Teeth Games continues to support the game following the full release with new content and updates.[25][26][27] On October 13th, 2016, the first DLC was released. The first paid DLC includes Team JNPR as playable characters, with unique skill sets for each member and full voice acting from Miles Luna, Samantha Ireland, Jen Brown and Neath Oum. Horde Mode, a new gametype separate to campaign, was released as free DLC. The Macintosh port was also made available on the same date, along with localizations in 8 languages.[28][29][3]

Trailers

Screenshots

Trivia

Grimm Eclipse was originally named RWBY: Grim Eclipse, but was renamed sometime after being picked up by Rooster Teeth, likely to match the canonical spelling of Grimm.

The in-game character portraits for Teams RWBY and JNPR are from the McFarlane Toys figurines packaging. The voice message icons for Ozpin, Oobleck and Port are from the official RWBY playing cards deck. All were drawn by Volume 3 Art Director Patrick Rodriguez.

Monty Oum's signature hidden as tribute

In the mission Forever Fall, Monty Oum's signature is hidden in the ground textures as an easter egg.[27]

Ren also occasionally says "Keep moving forward" in reference to Monty's personal motto.[31] Monty voiced Ren before his untimely death from an allergic reaction, at which point the role was taken over by Monty's brother, Neath.

Grimm Eclipse was one of the games played during Rooster Teeth's 8-Bit Salute Livestream event on May 17th, 2014, months before it was officially announced as being picked up by the company.

Grimm Eclipse was played by Rooster Teeth's gaming channel Achievement Hunter in a Let's Play. Three of the four who played the game, Lindsay Jones, Michael Jones and Ryan Haywood, also have voice roles in the show, although Michael Jones' character, Sun Wukong, does not appear in the game. Furthermore, Lindsay was playing as Ruby Rose, her character.

Grimm Eclipse has been played on numerous occasions by other Rooster Teeth staff and RWBY voice actors on live streamed events, including the Rooster Teeth Extra Life 24 hour stream and the RWBY Volume 3 mid-season live stream. The game was also played live at RTX Australia.

The game was also played by former Achievement Hunter Ray Narvaez, Jr. during a live stream on Twitch.tv on December 1st, 2015. He later played the game again as part of another live stream on July 9th, 2016.